As a child, I wasn’t supposed to listen to NPR. Because NPR is the source of the alluring evil liberal ideology which transforms good conservative children into damned secular humanists.

I remember mocking my father’s concern about NPR to my eldest sister. She seriously responded that perhaps NPR had actually shaped her and catapulted the apple far from the tree. I thought she was crazy.

I tried to be good. But then one day I felt rebellious and tuned into public radio… to hear the voice of one of my parents’ attorney friends defending homeschooling. Mah Goodness! The irony pushed me over the edge, and from then on I did not bother to try to follow my father’s wishes.

So I spent days listening to the impeachment trial of the the chief justice of the state supreme court, and then stayed up all night to hear the results of the 2000 presidential elections. I even recorded part of the Bush v. Gore case. All isolated homeschooler geek jokes are so appropriate that they probably aren’t even funny. I may also have told my sister that I was going to name my first son “David” after a certain David A. Brancaccio.

Anyway, all that to say, NPR got me through some deep, dark, times as my rebellious teenage drug of choice.

So my love for various NPR personalities is not entirely healthy. And that is why I am convinced that this is by far the best Lady Gaga spoof ever.

That’s awesome. Christian works with these guys once in a while, and he says the change from their real persona to their on-air persona is so huge that he goes, “Whaaaa?” They’ll be all excited about a study C. is promoting, and then they get on air and sound like it’s totally blase. I love seeing them let it all hang out.

Kathleen, it makes me really happy to hear you say that. I’m glad they’re able to be excited about something off-air but then sound blasé about it, as you put it, on air. It just reinforces their neutrality to me. That, I think, is how the news should be presented – as news, not an opinion column passed off as news.

Oh my gosh, Rae, I love you for posting this. I don’ t know how I hadn’t seen it yet. I LOVE NPR, and seeing Nina Totenberg and Robert Siegel…oh, I laughed so hard. I needed that today, after how my week has gone. Thanks.